The whole area was thick with clay, dirt, and quartz. The latter element was a witch’s wet dream—quartz held magic and amplified it, creating potent spells and talismans. The miners during the gold rush had referred to it as a Quartz Reef, a place where gold had settled eons ago when water flowed through the entire area; though the ‘reef’ reference was simply a name they’d given to the large veins of crystal. It was also another reason spirits lingered here.

  In that moment, it didn’t matter what or how it was, only that it was a source of power she could draw on. She’d need it for the suffering she had planned for Jin.

  Sarah walked for some time as the spirits of tormented miners and supernatural creatures gathered in the shadows. They mirrored her steps but remained hidden. Perhaps they were waiting to see what she’d do, or maybe they recognised her through her connection to the Trine. Either way, she ignored them as she searched for a place deep enough where she wouldn’t be heard by certain nosey vampires back in town, and where she had better access to the power within.

  Finally, she left the track and clambered over a low mullock heap, passing by a collapsed mine shaft.

  The trees in this area were growing at unnatural angles. Their usually straight trunks bent in different directions, curling and angling at odds with their genetic code and gravity itself.

  This was the place.

  Opening her bag, Sarah took out a sheathed knife. Pulling the blade from the leather casing, she held it up to the moon as the calico bag fluttered to the ground. It was her athame, a ceremonial tool witches used in only their most complex and powerful spells. Hers looked like a dagger from a fantasy film—a black leather-wrapped hilt, and a sleek, double-edged silver blade etched with runes. Tonight, it would earn its keep.

  She brandished the athame. “I call upon the power buried here. I call upon those who are trapped. I call to you for help, so I can help you.”

  Then she began to carve, digging the blade into the hard clay, drawing a large circle. Once it was complete, she formed more lines within the border, marking out a complex design. It was a witch’s sigil—full of symbols and runes—and an anchor for a powerful ritual.

  “I feed you blood, so I can take blood.”

  She drew the knife across her palm, opening her flesh. Holding out her stinging hand, she let the blood drip onto the sigil. The lines began to glow a soft orange, spreading outwards until the entire carving was alight.

  “Share with me your strength. Share with me your power. Help me destroy the vampire, Jin Xu. Help me avenge my father.”

  Black mist curled up from the ground around her, seeping through the lines of the sigil and dulling the glow of her Legacy.

  “Help me,” she called. “Help me…”

  The mist rushed upwards and slammed into her, jerking her body back and forth as it enveloped her. Thick, foul-smelling darkness crawled around her limbs, over her chest, and up her neck.

  Sarah gasped, struggling against it, but it was no use. The mist poured into her open mouth and seeped into her nose, filling her lungs and curling around her spine. She felt it dig into her mind, whispering.

  ‘He is mine. He is mine. Return him to me…’

  The magic cut off; her connection to the power within the diggings severing so abruptly, Sarah fell to her knees. The impact forced a cry from her parched lips, and she shook her head.

  Blinking, she looked around the dark circle, but no one was there. The spirits who’d lingered in the shadows had retreated, leaving her alone with the consequences of her spell.

  Gathering her athame, Sarah put it back into the calico bag, then stood. Her shoulders felt tired, as though she carried a heavy burden upon them, but she ignored it and scraped her boot across the sigil, erasing the marks from the earth.

  There was no turning back now, but even if she could, she wouldn’t. It was time for their work to begin.

  CHAPTER 17

  Patrick stared at his reflection in the bathroom mirror, but all he saw on the other side of the glass was a fractured soul looking back at him.

  Grimacing, he walked out into the lounge room of his one-bedroom unit. The small brick veneer building was tucked away in one of Dunloe’s back streets, at the rear of a nondescript block of three other units that all looked exactly the same. It was better for a vampire like him—one who kept returning to the same place—to keep a low profile, and he couldn’t get any lower than this hole.

  His boots slid across the dozens of scraps of white paper that were scattered over the hard, grey carpet. But it wasn’t just the floor—they also hung from the kitchen cupboards, lingered by the front door, and plastered on the fridge door.

  Reminders.

  For two days he’d been trying to figure out when the Trine cursed him to do their bidding. Was it before or after he’d turned Jin? It wasn’t clear. The more he tried to unravel the truth, the muddier his mind became.

  Had he been duped from the start?

  He opened the fridge, bypassed the hospital-grade blood bags, and took out the bottle of vodka he’d been keeping for special occasions like this one.

  Alcohol served as an elixir for vampires. More often than not, when he became hungry and his throat burned for the taste of blood, drinking helped soothe his vampiric tendencies.

  Drinking straight from the bottle, he leaned against the counter as the fiery alcohol trickled down his throat and into his stomach.

  Since Holly had arrived in Dunloe, he’d been fighting against everything Samantha had been telling him, trying to convince her to leave Holly alone. But as soon as he’d turned his back, he’d done the exact opposite of what he’d pleaded…every single time.

  Why now? And why hadn’t he fought back when they’d gone after Hannah? He didn’t even want to contemplate how many Burke witches they’d sacrificed between 1852 and now. How many had they made him forget?

  He drank again, skulling a quarter of the vodka in one go.

  If he was right about the curse, then the moment he walked into Samantha Dunne’s house, she’d erase his rebellion again, and then all this revelation would be for nothing. Looking at the floor, he knew it already had.

  There had to be something he could do, some way to free himself from his own mind.

  Wrenching open the junk drawer in the kitchen, he found a pad of paper, some sticky tape, and a pen. Sitting at the table, he took a deep breath.

  And he started to write.

  Holly sat on the rug in the lounge room of the cottage, furiously writing in a notebook with an inky black cover. The ballpoint pen scratched over the plain, cream-coloured pages, her fingers aching from where the cheap plastic had dug against her bones.

  Flipping the page, she wrote, ‘What is the conduit, really?’ Then, she underlined ‘really’ at least ten times as she pondered.

  During her search for Aunt Hannah’s grimoire, she’d found the blank journal amongst the books on the living room shelves, but it hadn’t turned out to be anything special. She’d held the pages up to the light and said ridiculous things she’d imagined would cast a spell over it, but nothing happened. There was no invisible ink hiding secret writings or magical spells. It was just a plain, old, empty notebook.

  In lieu of a grimoire of her own, Holly decided to spill her thoughts onto the empty pages—and that’s how she’d spent the last few days. She went over everything she suspected, everything she’d been told, and everything she knew was true.

  There was a lot to figure out. A lot of it she had to accept, despite the realist in her scoffing at the supernatural, but she’d seen it all with her own eyes and felt it through her glimpses since she was young. There was something else out there and now, she was a part of it, good and bad.

  Speaking of the supernatural, she hadn’t seen Jin or Patrick since the night they fought outside, and the Trine hadn’t been knocking on her door, either. Whatever game they were all playing, the underworld had gone quiet, but it didn’t mean they’d gone away. ‘Quiet’ often told a different story. ‘Quiet’ was a time of planning, plotting, and secret meetings.

  Holly hadn’t seen Sarah either, and secretly, she was thankful. She didn’t know what to say to her friend, especially after everything she’d learned about the Trine’s obsession with the Burke witches.

  Could she trust her? If what Holly understood about witch Legacy was right, then Sarah’s allegiances laid with her family—whether she wanted them to or not. One day, she’d inherit Samantha’s seat amongst the Trine, and then what? Providing Holly lived that long, she wasn’t sure she wanted to find out.

  But that was the thing…she wanted to trust Sarah and Patrick, but who truly controlled them? Even Jin came into the picture, but he was dead-set on revenge. Knowing what he’d already done to Marty Dunne, his end game didn’t sit well with her, either. The vampire wanted carnage and death, while she just wanted to wake up tomorrow.

  Glancing at the coroner’s report on the coffee table, Holly sighed and turned back to her journal. She’d barely left the house, but she’d have to at some point. The fridge was getting pretty empty. Maybe she could order her groceries online and have them delivered. She felt safe in the cottage—

  A sound outside broke her concentration. Getting up, she peered through the curtains and was startled to see Patrick standing in the garden.

  The vampire paced, speared his hands through his hair, and took a step towards the house. Then he seemed to second-guess himself and stopped in his tracks, turned his back, and ran his hands over his face. She narrowed her eyes as the process repeated. It was painful to watch.

  Dropping her pen onto the coffee table, she went out into the hall and opened the front door. “What are you doing?”

  Patrick looked up and shrugged. “Having an existential crisis?”

  “And you came here to have it?”

  “Yes?” He seemed unsure, like he wanted to say something and run away at the same time.

  Holly shook her head, acquiescing. “Come up here and sit down.”

  “Don’t come outside.”

  “I won’t,” she told him. “I’ll just get a chair.”

  By the time she came back from the kitchen, Patrick was sitting on the topmost porch step, his back resting against the post. She positioned the chair she’d grabbed from the dining table and made herself comfortable.

  “I’ve been writing myself notes,” he murmured. Reaching into his pocket, he took out a folded piece of white notepaper and handed it to her.

  She reached through the invisible barrier and plucked the note from his pale fingers. “What’s this?”

  “Have a look.”

  Holly unfolded the paper and in swirling, old-timey cursive, he’d written, Don’t trust the Trine. The Trine cursed you.

  “They’re all over my house,” he said. “I don’t remember writing most of them.”

  She folded the note and handed it back.

  “I take it you’ve been to see them, then?”

  He nodded. “You were right.”

  “They did curse you?”

  “It appears so. Now I can see it—the holes in my memory, actions I’ve taken without reason—it can’t be anything else. I never thought twice about any of it.” He ran his fingers through his hair. “Until you told me.”

  “Why wouldn’t I?”

  He paused and turned his green eyes towards her. “No one else has.”

  Holly’s breath caught and she looked away.

  Patrick’s allegiances were somewhat clear—though muddied by the Trine’s meddling—but she was still confused about Jin’s true motives. Had he become the villain to protect her or to make her a pawn in his revenge plot? She understood his desire to avenge Hazel, but where did it leave her in the here and now?

  “And what about you?” Patrick asked.

  “It doesn’t matter how I feel. It is what it is.” She shrugged. “But after last night, I understand why Jin wanted me to keep my ability a secret.”

  “How did he find out?”

  “I thought I was helping the police find Marty Dunne,” she replied, not giving any more context. “But really, I was helping Jin cover his tracks.”

  “Well, he does have a plan,” the vampire drawled.

  “It wasn’t to fool the Trine, was it?”

  “No. Only to cover his tracks with the police. He wanted to goad the Trine into action. He wanted to see how far they’d go.”

  “I see…” Jin’s provocation was probably the reason she was attacked, and knowing it didn’t help change her opinion of the ‘detective.’ He was using her, so maybe she could turn the tables and use him.

  “Holly, I—”

  “I believe you want to do the right thing, Patrick,” she interrupted, “but you have to understand my position. I never knew any of this existed. I don’t know anything about magic or vampires, only what I’ve been told…and I’ve never been very good at doing what I’m told.” She sighed. “I have to accept all of it simply because I have to. I was attacked and I have to assume that it’ll happen again. I don’t even know what happened to my aunt.”

  “The Trine—”

  “I know what the Trine did,” she said. “But what did they do with her body? If I go to the cemetery, will I find her there?”

  Patrick lowered his gaze.

  “Of course not,” Holly muttered. It was one thing Jin was right about. “She’s probably in a shallow grave in the diggings, isn’t she?” When Patrick said nothing, she rolled her eyes. “Is her spirit trapped now? Is that a thing I have to take care of? Freeing Aunt Hannah from eternal turmoil?”

  “She died away from that place,” the vampire told her. “Her spirit isn’t there.”

  Holly snorted. “Maybe I should be comforted by that at least, but it still tastes sour.”

  “I truly didn’t know about the conduit,” Patrick told her. “I don’t know what the Trine wants with it.”

  “But you do know what it is?”

  The vampire nodded. “A link to an infinite source of power.”

  “A link, not the source?”

  “It’s difficult to tell.” Patrick shrugged. “Stories change the more they’re told. I’ve lived through many ages and have seen proof of it.”

  “History is always written by the victor…” Holly mused.

  “And edited.”

  She looked out over the garden and listened to the screeching parrots as they fought amongst the gum trees. Right now, it didn’t matter what the conduit was or how it worked. What did matter was that her life was in danger…and the more she learned, the messier it all became.

  “Where did it all begin?” she wondered. “Was it here, or was it in Ireland?”

  “Here,” Patrick replied. “It’s this place.”

  Holly studied the vampire’s profile and knew there were so many things she didn’t know about Patrick. He was 261 years old, and according to the average human lifespan recorded in modern times, that was over three lifetimes. What had he seen? Where had he wandered? Who had he known? What kind of man was Patrick when he was human? His life seemed extraordinary to her, but he looked so troubled by it all.

  “How did you come to be here?” she asked. “In Dunloe?”

  “I came to Australia in 1850,” he replied. “By then, sixty years had passed since I was turned—an entire lifetime and then some for a human being back then. Life becomes stagnant when you have more years than you need, and I was looking for…more, I suppose.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “Some of us don’t have the stamina to live forever,” he murmured. “The world is always changing, while vampires remain the same. It’s the constant reinvention of ourselves—maintaining our secret, the attempts at connecting to the changing times—that troubles us the most. A part of me will always be the man I was in 1789, frozen, never belonging to the now.” He lowered his gaze. “Immortality is exhausting.”

  “What about the vampire who made you?” Holly asked. “Where are they?”

  “They were…exhausted.”

  She frowned and began to worry the hem of her blouse. She understood his meaning. They’d killed themselves because immortality became too much to bear. “Are… Are you worried you’ll feel the same way?”

  “Sometimes,” Patrick replied. “It was his blood that made me, and I feel I must carry something of him with me because of it. Maybe that’s why it was so easy for the Trine to…” He lowered his head. “I can only search for meaning for so long.”

  “Your life does have meaning, Patrick.”

  The vampire froze, his entire body becoming rigid. “I helped kill your aunt,” he snarled. “And if I can’t free myself from this curse, then I’ll help them kill you. What kind of meaning is that?” He jerked to his feet. “I shouldn’t have come here.”

  Holly stood, the legs of the chair scraping across the floorboards. “If not here, then where?”

  “Do not trust me.”

  “There has to be a way to free you,” she blurted. “Then you’ll be able to see where you truly stand.”

  “And if you find this ‘way,’ whose magic will do the deed?” His lip curled, his eyes darkening unnaturally. “We both know yours can’t.”

  Holly flinched, even though she knew his words were true. “There must be other witches out there. We’ll go to them.”

  “You have a lot to learn, Holly,” Patrick scoffed and shook his head. “A lot, indeed.”

  “Obviously.” She grasped the door and kicked the chair out of the way. “Why did you come here, Patrick? To moan about how shit your life is? To take it out on me?”

  “Holly—”

  “Build a bridge,” she snapped, “and get over yourself. You’re not the only one with life-threatening problems around here.”

  Then she slammed the door in his face.

  CHAPTER 18